"Woman!" I muttered cuttingly.
"You—hard devil!" he hissed with sudden passion. He started forward, and our glances contended for a moment, but his quailed before mine.
"Answer me," I commanded.
He bit his lips until the blood appeared, and he gripped the sides of his chair with all his energy.
"Answer me," I repeated.
Of a sudden he began to cough. He coughed so violently that the convulsions racked his frame, and at length he sank back in his chair half-fainting, with half closed eyes.
I waited pitiless as fate. "Answer me," I repeated. "Must I wait for ever?"
But the fight had gone out of him. He heaved a sigh, and two salt tears trickled down his cheeks. "You know," he muttered, in a low, heartbroken wail. "You know—you know!"
"Answer me," I thundered. Sir William Dagmar might have known, you see, but I was ignorant.
"I am going to give it to her—to her," he murmured; his eyes were now quite closed and he seemed upon the verge of a collapse. This would never do!